It was perhaps at this juncture that he decided to strengthen his position by the co-operation of a fleet.  The superiority of the Chaldoan battalions had been so clearly manifested, that he could scarcely hope for a decisive victory if he persisted in seeking it on land; but if he could succeed in securing the command of the sea, his galleys, by continually cruising along the Syrian coast, and conveying troops, provisions, arms, and money to the Phoenician towns, would so successfully foster and maintain a spirit of rebellion, that the Chaldaeans would not dare to venture into Egypt until they had dealt with this source of danger in their rear.  He therefore set to work to increase the number of his war-vessels on the Bed Sea, but more especially on the Mediterranean, and as he had drawn upon Greece for his troops, he now applied to her for shipbuilders.*

* Herodotus tells us that in his time the ruins of the docks which Necho had made for the building of his triremes could still be seen on the shore of the Red Sea as well as on that of the Mediterranean.  He seems also to say that the building of the fleet was anterior to the first Syrian expedition.

[Illustration:  404.jpg AN EGYPTIAN VESSEL OF THE SAITE PERIOD]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph sent by G. Benedite.

The trireme, which had been invented by either the Samian or Corinthian naval constructors, had as yet been little used, and possibly Herodotus is attributing an event of his own time to this earlier period when he affirms that Necho filled a dockyard with a whole fleet of these vessels; he possessed, at any rate, a considerable number of them, and along with them other vessels of various build, in which the blunt stem and curved poop of the Greeks were combined with the square-cabined barque of the Egyptians.  At the same time, in order to transport the squadron from one sea to another when occasion demanded, he endeavoured to reopen the ancient canal.

He improved its course and widened it so as to permit of two triremes sailing abreast or easily clearing each other in passing.  The canal started from the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, not far from Patumos, and skirted the foot of the Arabian hills from west to east; it then plunged into the Wady Tumilat, and finally entered the head of the bay which now forms the Lake of Ismailia.  The narrow channel by which this sheet of water was anciently connected with the Gulf of Suez was probably obstructed in places, and required clearing out at several points, if not along its entire extent.  A later tradition states that after having lost 100,000 men in attempting this task, the king abandoned the project on the advice of an oracle, a god having been supposed to have predicted to him that he was working for the barbarians.*

* The figures, 100,000 men, are evidently exaggerated, for in a similar undertaking, the digging of the Mahmudiyeh canal, Mehemet-Ali lost only 10,000 men, though the work was greater.

[Illustration:  405.jpg THE ANCIENT HEAD OF THE RED SEA, NOW THE NORTHERN EXTREMITY OF THE BITTER LAKES]